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Benjamin Netanyahu, Barack Obama meet at White House for a fresh start

Goodbye cold shoulder, hello hot lunch: that is the expectation Tuesday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama come together at the White House in a fresh attempt to mend a relationship riddled with fault lines.

WASHINGTON—Goodbye cold shoulder, hello hot lunch: that is the expectation Tuesday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama come together at the White House in a fresh attempt to mend a relationship riddled with fault lines.

That the two will break bread is a symbolic step forward from their last chilling encounter in March, when the hawkish Netanyahu was hustled through the diplomatic equivalent of the servant’s entrance, denied his customary photo-op and news conference with Israel’s most important international ally.

And a step forward from the meeting that never happened in May, when Netanyahu cancelled a stop in Washington and instead raced home from Canada ahead of a wave of international anger over an Israeli commando raid on a Gaza aid flotilla that killed nine Turkish activists.

Whatever smiles and soft words the two leaders may trade, analysts describe the underlying dynamic as paradoxically grim: on one hand, an Obama administration shifting from rebuke to praise as a tactic to nudge Israel into fast-track peace talks with the Palestinians; and on the other, an Israeli electorate numbly immune to either approach.

Netanyahu, for his part, has signalled he is ready for direct talks — but unlike the Palestinians, his negotiating team has yet to reveal in any detail what he is willing to put on the table, a fact one of his senior ministers seized upon Monday.

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“Israel must take the bull by the horns and present a clear initiative that discusses drawing a border in Israel in such a way that settlement blocs along the border will remain in our hands and have a solid Jewish majority for generations, but in a way that will enable the establishment of an independent but demilitarized Palestinian state,” Israel Defence Minister Ehud Barack told reporters in Jerusalem.

Washington analysts say the more likely outcome of Tuesday’s meetings is a photo of the two men shaking hands — a symbolic gesture Netanyahu and Obama require for their respective domestic audiences. And, possibly, a pledge from Netanyahu to extend a crucial nine-month construction freeze on Israel’s network of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which is due to expire in September.

Amid a sense of deepening international isolation, the majority of Israelis feel trapped in “a deep and at this point almost irresolvable ambivalence,” said Yossi Klein Halevi, a fellow at Jerusalem’s Shalom Hartman Institute.

“Israelis seen a Palestinian state as an existential necessity that would free us from the burden of occupation and pariah status,” Halevi told the Toronto Star.

“But we also think of a Palestinian state as an existential threat, because if it is created prematurely it could fall like ripe fruit into the hands of Hamas. When you factor in the ugly international mood against Israel, the deepest fear is we would pull out of the West Bank only to find ourselves faced with terrorists hiding behind civilians — and Israel might then not have the international legitimacy to go back in and protect itself.”

The bifurcated Palestinian leadership, with hardline Hamas in control of Gaza and the more moderate Palestinian Authority in charge of the West Bank, remains at odds. But the PA, under the leadership of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, has won praise for focusing on institution building, with better-trained security forces enabling a sharp reduction in Israeli military checkpoints. The net effect is evident in a surprisingly strong West Bank economy, which registered 7 per cent growth last year despite the global downturn. Fayyad has signalled to the Palestinian business community to ready itself for future statehood with the necessary investments now.

That change in tone from the West Bank leadership appears only to have deepened the Israeli dilemma, as the Jewish settler leadership mounts a new campaign to resume expansion of the civilian colonies, which have tripled to an estimated 300,000 people since the first round of peace talks began 18 years ago.

It remains unclear how Netanyahu, who at times took a firm stand against the settlers during his first term of premiership in the 1990s, will respond to the competing pressures. His coalition cabinet is stocked with hardliners, foremost among them Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who is anxious to resume construction, claiming concessions to the Palestinians have not brought results.

Lieberman was enraged last week when Netanyahu bypassed his foreign minister, secretly dispatching another cabinet envoy to meet with Turkish officials in an effort to salvage ties frayed to the breaking point over the flotilla raid.

But the diplomatic brinksmanship continued Monday, with Turkey’s foreign minister quoted as saying the breaking of diplomatic ties with Israel could only be averted if Israeli either apologized or accepted the outcome of an international inquiry into the raid.

“We don’t have any intention to apologize. We think the opposite is true,” Lieberman responded.

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